There are a lot of bands with an intellectual point to make, and even more bands who pretend to make one. Music underscored by cumbersome concepts make listening hard work, so that the album in question seems weighted down by dense musicianship and heavy rhetoric that go against the listener’s enjoyment and appear disingenuous. The pretenders, on the other hand, insult the listener by putting on a show. They’re masters of artifice and theatrics, and they wear all the right makeup and costumes but lack substance.
Joyless are somehow putting on a show, but there isn’t any pretense to be found on “Wisdom & Arrogance.” They’re comfortable with their silliness and don’t adorn their music with unnecessary frills. The album’s sincere approach portrays life as a sandcastle built closest to the tide or as a name written in sand. The atmosphere is burdened by a sense of transience, but Joyless maintain the nonsensical compulsion to exist in spite of it.
Appropriately, the music progresses childishly—in the positive sense of the word. “Wisdom & Arrogance” is not a metal album. Instead, it takes on a depressive rock style that often harks back to the 1950’s and 60’s. The songs are, in general, simple and catchy, with a verse-chorus structure. They have the feeling of a jam session consisting of close friends, but their structures are still highly calculated, if formulaic.
As a result, the instrumentation follows predictable patterns, but does so with a personality that is not to be found on any other release. The clean guitar tone gives the music a sort of “jangly” sound, while the bass rises to prominence and does its own work, such as in “Divine.” Fitting with the simplistic rock style, the drums are not noteworthy and, in “Transpire” and “Stand,” are entirely replaced by tambourines, chimes, and claps.
In fact, much of “Wisdom & Arrogance” could be described as “retro.” Stand” sounds like a slow, melancholy surf rock song, if surf rockers had been depressed nine-year-olds who couldn’t speak English. “Transpire” is the album’s charismatic childishness at its peak. The guitars proceed at a carefree, head-bobbing rhythm akin to older rock, while the vocalist (two of her, actually) cathartically spouts her angst—without intelligence and without pretense (that is, you’ll hear the f-word quite a few times).
The vocals precisely characterize the childishness of the album. Helleboe sounds like a little girl who can’t speak English, as the vocals even come out with a laughably silly accent. Outside this context, she’d be a terrible singer, but within it, she is perfect. Helleboe has a voice that sounds not only innocent in “Divine,” “Stand,” and “Isn’t It Nice,” but also depressive and world-weary. Her vocals rise to the level of what one might call “beautiful,” while still being rooted in ugliness.
The album is not trying to be perfect, and it shows, however negatively. “The Nails” is a spoken-word piece and, though Helleboe’s accent-laden English is entertaining, this song is hard to sit through. It marks an uncomfortable break in the album and splits the release unnecessarily in two halves. There is nothing thematically different between the first four songs and the last four, and so “The Nails” is really nothing but filler, uncomfortable filler at that. “Why Should I Cry?” is weak and forgettable in comparison to the song it follows, “Transpire.” Perhaps it’s too long, or the chorus is weak. In any case, it’s at this point that the album starts to drag. “Trust Endorse” doesn’t help at all, as it’s only an instrumental version of “Stand,” but at least it lends cohesion to the release as a whole. “Room of Velvet Splendour” juts out at the end at nearly nine minutes in length. It’s a good song that showcases the retro-rock style, but its male-driven vocals and length go against what was established previously.
In truth, the band's discography as a whole seems to have a problem with filler. Their releases sometimes amount to leftover material from Forgotten Woods or are stuffed with re-released tracks. Taking “Wisdom & Arrogance” track-by-track shows that Joyless were not thinking on a super-conceptual level when they composed the album. If one systematically approaches something that was not conceived systematically, he is bound to find incoherence. In a way, the incoherence makes the album more human.
Nevertheless, “Wisdom & Arrogance” is one of those albums that you like in spite of—or maybe even because of—its flaws. Its edgy presentation gives it personality. With this release, Joyless have set innocence and charm to song. As a whole, the album is easy to digest but manages to entertain meaningful questions and give the listener an outlet for his depression and angst, without going overboard. With songs like “Transpire” or “Stand,” at first you’ll raise an eyebrow, and then you’ll crack a smile. “Wisdom & Arrogance” is Joyless in the truest sense of the word, but it’s an album that inspires cynical laughter, not gratuitous weeping.
Sample: youtube.com/watch?v=fR5BOZoNcGg&list=PLP3IK7t65jLDua1b-uKIo_2T4aFth13Xx
